In this paper, we focus on analyzing the implementations of one particular type of business rules, that is, data constraints.
A data constraint is a restriction on the possible values that an attribute may take [1]}, [2]}.
While all data used in a software system are subject to constraints, we focus on the constraints stemming from the business rules of the problem domain that a software system addresses.
For example, “[the maximum frequency] is greater than the Nyquist frequency of the wave” [3]} is a constraint on seismic waveform data, while “the patient is three calendar years of age or older” [4]} is a constraint on healthcare data.
For simplicity, in the remainder of the paper, when we refer to constraints, we imply data constraints.
